In the absence of President Lee Bollinger, Executive Committee chair Sharyn O’Halloran called the Senate to order shortly after 1:15 pm in 107 Jerome Greene Hall. Fifty-four of 101 senators were present during the meeting.

Minutes and agenda. The agenda and the minutes of November 12 were adopted as proposed. Sen. Ronald Breslow (Ten., A&S/NS) made a point of order, asking for an actual vote on the minutes and agenda. Sen. O’Halloran said she thought voting was only needed if there were objections to the minutes as proposed, but she was happy to hold a vote. The minutes and agenda were approved by voice vote.

Sen. O’Halloran said a glitch at the previous meeting had prevented a recording. She conveyed the secretary’s thanks to all senators who had helped reconstruct the November discussion. She asked senators to check the minutes again for accuracy and completeness.

Executive Committee chair’s remarks. Sen. O’Halloran said the faculty caucuses would be meeting in the coming week. Fringe benefits. Sen. O’Halloran reminded senators that she was chairing the health care subcommittee of the administration task force on fringe benefits. She said the subcommittee was proceeding efficiently, but the process was deep, with a lot of data. The participation rate for the recently completed survey, about 30 percent, was good. She thanked everyone who took part, and said the process so far had been healthy. A subcommittee of Faculty Affairs including senators from non-faculty constituencies was functioning as a Senate task force on fringe benefits. Its leaders were Prof. Paul Duby of Faculty Affairs and FAC co-chairs Robert Pollack (Ten., A&S/NS) and Letty Moss-Salentijn (Ten., CDM). Sen. O’Halloran said this small group had met with the provost to discuss data sharing and the work of the administration task force. She looked forward to a constructive conversation within the Senate. In the spring term, there would be a series of town hall meetings (including one Senate plenary) about recommended changes in fringe benefits.

ROTC update. Sen. Ron Mazor (Stu., Law), chair of a Student Affairs subcommittee on ROTC, said a recent report to the U.S. Senate would have important implications for the debate on “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” the 1993 law forbidding military service by openly gay people. Student Affairs was working on a plan to engage the student body in discussion on ROTC and to gather student opinion. The current plan was to assemble a website on the issues involved, and also prepare for a number of open forums and town halls in the spring.

Sen. Daniel Savin (Research Officers) asked why the students were revisiting this issue before the U.S. government had changed its policy. He said extensive Senate discussion in 2005 seemed to reach the conclusion that as long as DADT was in place, Columbia would reject ROTC because of its incompatibility with the university's nondiscrimination policies. Students who wanted to serve in ROTC now could do so at another campus in the New York metropolitan area. And even if Columbia were to decide to invite ROTC to campus, it wasn’t clear that the military would spread its resources more thinly by opening up another ROTC program. He concluded that discussion of ROTC seemed premature.

Sen. O’Halloran understood the student group to be considering not only ROTC, but also other kinds of engagement with the military. She said students might also be preparing for the repeal of DADT. Sen. Mazor agreed that preparation for repeal was a motivation.

Sen. Liya Yu (Stu., GSAS/SS) asked whether it was also premature to make a prominent display on Columbia’s new test web site of the color guard ceremony recently staged by Columbia students who are cadets in off-campus ROTC programs. What message was Columbia sending to the public?

Sen. James Applegate (Ten., A&S/NS) said DADT seemed to be still alive only because Congress didn’t know how to let it die. Something was certainly going to happen with DADT during the present lame-duck session, he said, though it wasn’t clear what that would be. Sen. Applegate added that discussion of ROTC didn’t die with the negative University Senate vote of 2005, but came up again in 2008 with a student referendum in which about half the students voted yes and half voted no. Sen. Applegate said discussion was continuing on these issues, as well as on the university’s broader relationship with the military. As for the flag-raising ceremony, Sen. Applegate said he thought the feedback had been extraordinarily positive.

The 2009 conflict of interest policy. Sen. O’Halloran said another issue under active consideration both by the Executive Committee and External Relations was the review of the policy on conflict of interest and research that the Senate adopted on April 3, 2009. External Relations was now working with the Office of Research Administration on the oversight and management of that policy, and would be meeting with Naomi Schrag, Associate Vice President for Research Compliance. A review, which would get up to speed in the spring, would also cover activities on the medical campus, including new scrutiny of provisions for disclosure and for determining conflict of interest.

At the end of the report, Sen. Alex Frouman (Stu., CC) raised the issue of environmental report cards, which evaluate the performance of universities on a range of environmental issues. Ms. Mesa said there was some controversy in the higher-education community about the half-dozen rating systems for universities’ sustainability efforts that had sprung up in recent years. The new systems are not transparent about their procedures, she said, and about 50 schools have signed an open letter to all of these ranking organizations, asking them to adopt eight principles of good governance, including transparency, disclosure, and funding arrangements free of of financial conflict of interest.

The universities’ concerns about these ranking agencies also included the lack of evidence for some of their conclusions, and the absence of some sustainability criteria that Ms. Mesa considered crucial, such as the role of community, as well as important geographical distinctions—between urban campuses and other kinds, and between research universities and liberal arts colleges. Some 50 universities opted instead for their own rating arrangement—STARS (Sustainability Tracking Assessment and Rating System). She said the reason she couldn’t properly account for fluctuations in Columbia’s grades on recent environmental report cards was the lack of transparency in the rating system.

Sen. Frouman noted that when Columbia received an A-minus grade two years ago, the news was touted on university websites, and President Bollinger mentioned it at a Senate plenary. Then, when the grade fell to a B or B-plus, the university stopped talking about it. Sen. Frouman suggested maintaining a consistent message on these grades, and not talking about them only when Columbia is doing well.

Ms. Mesa gave an example of her own confusion on the grades: in the year Columbia got only a B, it adopted its climate action plan, and completed its greenhouse gas emissions inventory. When she tried to learn more about this grade, the response was that the information was proprietary. This was the point at which she decided to try a new approach.

Sen. Applegate thanked Ms. Mesa for an impressive report. He added that the organizations that have given Columbia its environmental grades are advocacy groups, whose goal is to use the grades to help influence policy. Columbia needs only to consider what it does, and decide whether the group’s recommendations are sensible. If they aren’t, Columbia should ignore them.

Another senator asked if Columbia planned to phase out #4 and #6 fuel oil in university-owned buildings. Ms. Mesa said #4 and #6 fuel oil create nasty particles that contribute to asthma conditions, particularly near Morningside. When it comes time, Columbia will install new boilers that burn #2 fuel oil and natural gas, and perhaps both.

To applause, Sen. O’Halloran thanked Ms. Mesa for her presentation.

New business. Revised Resolution to Approve a New Smoking Policy for Columbia University’s Morningside Campus. Sen. O’Halloran said that after a lively discussion at the November plenary, there had been further meetings involving student groups; Michael McNeil, who had led the Tobacco Work Group, and Scott Wright, VP for Student and Administrative Services. She said the additional discussions had yielded good results. At the November meeting there had also been questions about the distinct policy process at the Medical Center and its results, and two Medical Center administrators had kindly agreed to come to the present meeting to talk about their experience. After their account, she said, Sen. Frouman and perhaps Michael McNeil would talk about the latest recommendation for a Morningside policy.

Report from Kathleen Crowley, Associate Vice President for Environmental Health and Safety, and Amador Centeno, Vice President for Facilities, CUMC. Ms. Crowley said she was a clinician by training, and her career started at New York Presbyterian in 1985. She joined the Medical Center in 1999, and her responsibilities now covered Morningside as well. When she started in 1985 it was possible to buy cigarettes in a machine in the doctors’ cafeteria and smoke anywhere. It was decided to ban indoor smoking throughout the hospital and medical center and move it outside. In 2009, after a policy migration that included perimeter boundaries, designated smoking areas, and even a smoking hut up at the Allen Pavilion, a decision was made by Dr. Herbert Pardes of Presbyterian Hospital, Dean Lee Goldman of the Medical Center, and the leadership at New York State Psychiatric Institute to ban smoking indoors and out. A work group was assembled, and the better part of six months was devoted to preparing a media campaign and making resources available for smoking cessation programs and the nicotine patch. On August 10, 2009, the Medical Center went smoke free. This meant asking people to refrain from smoking for the protection of the patients, staff, students and visitors.

Mr. Centeno spoke about implementation efforts. These included signs across the campus and a new website. There was a series of meetings with students, faculty and staff. Mr. Centeno said the first steps, before considering serious enforcement efforts, were communication efforts to enable smokers to step away from building entrances. The idea was to see if this approach would work, and to consider stronger measures if it didn’t. A little more than a year after the announcement of the policy, he was pleased to report that there had been no need for more serious enforcement measures. He said the experience had been fascinating. Compliance had not been 100 percent, but the vast majority of people have listened; most people who haven’t followed the policy were visitors who were unaware of it. He and Ms. Crowley had approached many smokers and asked them to move, almost always with good results.

Sen. Consuelo Mora-McLaughlin (Admin. Staff, CUMC) said that when the smoke-free policy began, enforcement measures were communicated to the staff. She had seen security guards near outer doors go outside to tell (sometimes shout at) smokers on the sidewalk. Security guards were unhappy about this arrangement, which required them to leave their stations unattended to go outside. Sen. Mora-McLaughlin had been told that Security would monitor cameras to look for repeat offenders, and would impose disciplinary measures after a third offense. She expressed puzzlement at Mr. Centeno’s remarks.

Mr. Centeno said he knew what Public Safety does at the Medical Center, and affirmed that they do not monitor cameras. He said Public Safety doesn’t own enforcement, and any employee could step outside to talk to smokers.

Sen. Mora-McLaughlin said security officers had told her that they were told to enforce the policy. Mr. Centeno repeated that the administration had not said this to public safety officers.

Sen. Mora-Mclaughlin said a good feature of the smoke-free policy was the prominent placement of big stickers about smoking cessation programs.

Sen. Mi Wang (Stu., GSAS/NS) said she was based in Pharmacology at P&S. She thanked the Medical Center administration for implementing this policy, and was glad to be able to cite it when someone next to her was smoking. But she expressed concern that the Medical Center campus is not a clearly defined area, and not easy to distinguish from surrounding city streets.

Ms. Crowley acknowledged the challenge of enforcement at a vertical campus surrounded by sidewalks. But she said that when she sees people smoking in front of any Medical Center building, she points to signs, explains that they are in a medical center, and asks them to refrain. They almost always agree, and move out into the street. But she doesn’t normally approach someone walking down the street with a cigarette. She said maintaining a smoke-free environment was part of the culture of a medical center.

Sen. Mark Cohen (NT, Bus.) asked why the Medical Center policy was determined by its administrative leaders, whereas the University Senate was handling the Morningside policy.

Sen. O’Halloran offered the answer that Morningside is a different kind of campus, with a different function from the Medical Center. Morningside has a large, diverse population, including a large fraction of residential undergraduates. There the process had been to work with the student health administration, to rely on a working group, and to bring the policy recommendation to the Senate to assure collaboration and understanding of the various interests.

Sen. Ron Prywes (Ten. A&S/NS) asked what constitutes compliance with the Medical Center policy. Do smokers go 20 feet away from campus buildings? Is that still considered campus?
Mr. Centeno said smokers usually go into the street.

Sen. O’Halloran said such an arrangement would work at the Medical Center, but probably not on Morningside.

Sen. Prywes understood the current Senate proposal for Morningside to call for 20 feet between smokers and an entire building, not just the entrances, whereas the Medical Center seemed to measure the distance mainly from building entrances.

Ms. Crowley said she is responsible for environmental health and safety on all Columbia campuses, and it’s not uncommon for her to get a complaint from someone in Low Library that smoke is wafting in the windows. The 20-foot restriction involves the entire perimeter of the building because of the different paths that smoke can travel, including into HVAC intake valves. At the medical center, the university and the hospital do not own the street. That’s why people will smoke at the curb.
Sen. Ron Mazor (Stu., Law) said the need for a smoke-free environment in a medical center is self-evident. Wasn't that a main reason for the CUMC policy? This reason might not apply on an undergraduate or university-wide campus.

Ms. Crowley said the process at CUMC was evolutionary. First there was smoking, then smoking restrictions—no smoking inside except in university offices. Then all indoor smoking was forbidden, and a 50-foot outdoor restriction was adopted. Then there were designated outdoor smoking areas, and finally a smoke-free policy, indoors and out.

Sen. Lydia Goehr (Ten., A&S/Hum) asked if there was a lot of faculty housing near the medical campus.

Sen. Alice Prince (Ten., P&S) said the result of the smoke-free policy is essentially that there is no smoking at the Medical Center, and that’s wonderful. With a 20- or 50-foot policy, one entered and left buildings through a cloud of smoke. When she opened windows in her fourth-floor office, the smoke came in from smokers congregating below. She repeated that since the ban one doesn’t notice smokers any more.

Sen. Andrew Springer (Stu., Journalism) asked if the Senate has the same jurisdiction over the medical campus as on Morningside. Could the Senate repeal CUMC’s smoke-free policy?

Sen. O’Halloran said the Senate is charged to address issues affecting the entire university or more than one school. She said such an initiative would be considered by the Executive Committee.

Sen. O’Halloran thanked the guests for their report.

Report from Sen. Alex Frouman (Stu., CC). Sen. Frouman explained why the 50-foot restriction—allowing smoking only 50 feet from Morningside campus buildings—that the Senate had discussed the previous month had been changed to a 20-foot restriction in the revised resolution. He said the new rule had been arrived at in discussions with Michael McNeil and Scott Wright. With help from Sen. O’Halloran, Sen. Frouman showed digital maps showing the effects of both restrictions.

Sen. Frouman pointed out that a 50-foot ban in the northeast section of campus—in Mudd, Schermerhorn, or Avery for example—would amount to a near-total ban, and would defeat the purpose of a campus-wide consistent-distance rule. Another problem would be the difficulty of enforcing a near-ban on this part of campus. A 20-foot restriction, by contrast, would leave space around most buildings for smoking.

Two other reasons for a 20-foot restriction, Sen. Frouman said, are its conformity with New York State law, and its consistency across the whole campus. All buildings, even some that now have 50-foot restrictions, would go to a 20-foot restriction.
Sen. O’Halloran invited Michael McNeil, chair of the Tobacco Work Group, to comment.
Mr. McNeil said he appreciated the energy the Senate had put into this project. He was comfortable with the proposed 20-foot compromise. He understood that such a policy, if it were adopted, would require a number of additional operational steps, which he looked forward to discussing with the Senate.

Sen. O’Halloran called for consideration of the resolution to adopt a 20-foot restriction on outdoor smoking throughout the Columbia campus.

Sen. Tao Tan (Stu., Bus.) said Sen. Michael Adler (Ten., Bus.) had proposed a one-word amendment to the resolution’s last Resolved clause—“the External Relations Committee will review the new policy in two years”—changing “in” to “within.”.

Sen. O’Halloran, hearing no objections, was prepared to accept this amendment as friendly. But it was moved, seconded, and approved by voice vote without dissent.

Sen. Cohen asked for a straw poll—before the vote on the 20-foot resolution—to gauge Senate support for an outright campus-wide ban of the kind already enacted at the Medical Center and now under consideration at Barnard.

Sen. O’Halloran preferred to address the resolution before considering a straw poll.

Sen. Soulaymane Kachani suggested offering an amendment in that case.

Sen. O’Halloran objected to that idea.

Sen. Cohen repeated his request for a straw vote before a vote on the resolution at hand. Sen. Kachani agreed.

Howard Jacobson, the parliamentarian, said the chair had ruled that the resolution should go first. The Senate could vote on whether to overturn the chair’s ruling by a simple majority.

Sen. Prince asked it the current resolution would actually make more space available for smoking than the current policy does.

Sen. O’Halloran said the goal was a consistent guideline. She also thought the resolution would allow less space for smoking overall than the status quo.

Sen. Springer asked if the Senate was now voting on an amendment or the whole resolution.

Sen. O’Halloran explained again that the Senate had just voted on a minor amendment. She repeated that she wanted to address the resolution first, and then consider a possible straw poll.

Discussion of Sen. Kachani's amendment to the 20-foot resolution calling for an outright smoking ban. Sen. Kachani then moved an amendment to the resolution calling for an outright ban on smoking on the Morningside campus. The motion was seconded.

Sen. O’Halloran first asked for and received Senate approval to open discussion on the 20-foot resolution.

She said a vote on Sen. Kachani’s amendment would take precedence over the actual resolution. She understood that it would call for replacing all the current Resolved clauses with a clause calling for a total smoking ban.

Mr. Jacobson added that the current Whereas clauses would make no sense with the new Resolved clause. So more changes would be required.

Sen. Cohen said he wanted the resolution rewritten to match the intent of the Medical Center policy as closely as possible.

Sen. O’Halloran understood the intent of the amendment to be to strike the entire content of the current resolution and to substitute a call for a total ban on the Morningside campus.

Sen. Tan asked, as a point of clarification, why the amenders wanted to remove the Resolved clause affirming the value of smoking cessation programs.

Mr. Jacobson also asked for a clarification of the amendment on the matter of buildings that are not contiguous to the Morningside campus, including dorms, the former McVickar, a couple of Law School buildings, etc. He expressed uncertainty about what a total ban would mean in the area around these buildings.

Sen. Cohen took Mr. Jacobson’s point, and suggested that the matter be returned to the Tobacco Work Group with a directive to recraft the proposal as an outright ban within the confines of the traditional campus, but with special provisions—perhaps a consistent-distance rule—for non-contiguous off-campus buildings.

Mr. Jacobson asked if Sens. Kachani and Cohen wanted to proceed with an amendment or with a motion to table the current resolution.

Sen. Cohen offered an explanation of his objective in the current debate. He said he was trying to stop the Senate from enacting the 20-foot prohibition now on the floor, and to urge the Senate to consider a total smoking ban. He recognized the need for some accommodation for non-contiguous buildings on Morningside Heights, and didn’t want to run the risk of botching the wordsmithing of the current proposal on the Senate floor. He said he had originally asked for a straw vote, which might give the Tobacco Work Group a clear mandate about changes to make.

Sen. Kachani said that a straw vote was preferable to an amendment. He said that if an overwhelming majority opposed a total ban, he would reconsider his position.

Sen. O’Halloran repeated her preference for completing action on the 20-foot proposal first, then having a straw vote.
Sen. Cohen said that arrangement would require senators who want a ban to vote against the current resolution to enable the Work Group to reconsider a ban. He said the worst outcome would be to table the whole issue for years.

Sen. O’Halloran said she was asking for action first on a proposal resulting from a two-year deliberative process. She considered this proposal a good first step. After consideration of the 20-foot resolution, she said, she would agree to a straw vote on a full ban. If the order were to be reversed, the resolution on the agenda might not even be considered.

Sen. Cohen said he did not want to vote for the policy recommended by the Work Group because, with all due deference to their work, he thought it was inappropriate.

Sen. Esteban Reichberg (Stu, SAPP) said he was an asthmatic who had lost three grandparents to smoking-related cancers and was in a tiny minority of non-smokers in a large family. He hated smoking. At the same time, he opposed a smoking ban because he was uncomfortable telling people what to put in their bodies. He said there was insufficient evidence on the question of the harm done by secondhand smoke outdoors, as opposed to indoors. He said it might be reasonable to have a campus-wide ban eventually, but it would be counterproductive to try to enforce one prematurely. He said the experience of the Medical Center bore out this lesson.

Sen. Reichberg said one of the maps on the screen, which he had designed, showed areas like the plaza between Avery and Schermerhorn or the semicircular seating on the east side of Low Library, where, under a 20-foot restriction, smokers could sit and smoke out of the way of other people. Receptacles in such locations could publicize smoking cessation programs. Such an approach would provide the carrot rather than the stick, he said, encouraging a smoke-free environment in years to come.

Mr. Jacobson summarized the proposal from Sens. Cohen and Kachani as a call to change the current resolution to a smoking ban on the campus, and to ask the Work Group to consider new language to cover non-contiguous university buildings. Sen. Cohen agreed with this summary.

Sen. Tan stressed the quality and thoughtfulness of deliberations over the previous week that had gone into the proposal now before the Senate. He seconded Sen. Reichberg’s warning about the difficulties of imposing a draconian policy in a top-down way. The current resolution reflects a more bottom-up approach, he said, a sense of what people will comply with, not of what they have agreed to enforce. Sen. Tan said he opposed the imposition of a top-down wholesale ban without more discussion.

Sen. Cohen noted that the leadership of the Medical Center had adopted a draconian policy without the benefit of Senate involvement or popular opinion. He noted that some fellow senators in the present discussion had called this a successful decision. He thought it would be a mistake to let this decision be put off, because it was ultimately a yes-or-no matter. He said he wasn’t sure what parliamentary rules allowed him to do, but his goal was to oppose enacting the 20-foot policy. The alternatives were to rewrite it on the spot and vote on that, or to send it back to the Work Group with a mandate to make the changes the Senate wants.

Sen. O’Halloran understood Sen. Cohen to be moving to table the current resolution.

Sen. Cohen said he preferred not to table.

Sen. Shukree Tilghman (Stu., Arts) asked whether a senator is allowed to offer an amendment that’s fundamentally incompatible with the resolution on the floor. Such a motion is not really an amendment, he said.

Sen. O’Halloran said amendments of this kind are allowed.

Sen. Frouman noted some differences between the medical and Morningside campuses. He said the Senate might not have the power to institute a smoking ban. Last year at a plenary meeting President Bollinger said he reserved the right to have the central administration make the final decision on this issue, though he would weigh heavily the recommendation of the Senate. Sen. Frouman said the Senate cannot enact a policy on the medical campus because the administration there already made a decision; but on the Morningside campus, the administration is waiting for a recommendation from the Senate that is based on the work of the Work Group, which was led by Health Services and Scott Wright’s office.

Sen. Frouman also noted that the open area on the medical campus is far smaller than on the Morningside campus. Few people use that space at the uptown campus, and nobody lives next to it, as undergraduate students do on Morningside. He said Barnard also had much less open space than Columbia (though perhaps more than the Medical Center) and a smaller population.

Sen. Liya Yu (Stu., GSAS/SS), a co-chair with Sen. O’Halloran of the External Relations Committee, which co-sponsored the current resolution, supported her co-chair’s appeal to the Senate to consider the current resolution, and urged fellow senators not to speculate about future decisions which are now unknowable.

Sen. Tan called the question, asking for a vote on Kachani'/Cohen amendment.

Vote on Sen. Genty's motion to table the Kachani/Cohen amendment calling for a total ban. Sen. Philip Genty (NT, Law) moved to table the Kachani/Cohen amendment. There was a second.

Sen. O’Halloran said the move to table the amendment took precedence over Sen. Cohen’s amendment. She repeated the content of the amendment.

Sen. Jacobson agreed that the ion to table took precedence, and added that it was non-debatable.

Sen. O’Halloran said the only appropriate statements at this juncture were points of clarification.

Sen. Nancy Friedland (Libraries) noted prior comments about the evolutionary path that smoking policy followed at the Medical Center. She suggested recognizing that the Morningside policy might evolve in a similar way, without draconian enforcement right away, and with an effort to publicize the eventual goal of a smoke-free campus. She said the amendment process might be used to convey these additional guidelines.

Sen. O’Halloran said this idea could be discussed at another time; for the moment she could only entertain points of clarification.

Sen. Mazor asked what the consequence of tabling the Kachani/Cohen amendment would be.

Mr. Jacobson said that if the amendment were tabled, the Senate would be back to the original 20-foot resolution with the friendly amendment from Sen. Adler.

Sen. O’Halloran called for a vote on the motion to table the Kachani/Cohen amendment. She determined that the motion to table passed.

Sen. O’Halloran said the Senate was now back to the original 20-foot resolution.

Vote on Sen. Savin's motion to table the original resolution. Sen. Daniel Savin (Research Officers) moved to table the original resolution. There was a second.

Sen. O’Halloran said the motion to table the original resolution was not debatable. She called for a vote by show of hands. She determined that the motion to table was defeated.

Vote on the original resolution for a 20-foot restriction. Sen. O’Halloran said the Senate was again back to the original resolution.

Sen. Reichberg asked whether passing the current resolution would preclude the possibility of a campus-wide ban in the future. Sen. O’Halloran said it would not.

Mr. McNeil agreed.

Sen. David King (NT, SAPP) asked if the 20-foot resolution would account for hedges and railings of walkways around buildings. He worked in Buell and Avery halls, and 20 feet is not sufficient to enable him to get from one building to the other without walking through smokers.

Sen. Frouman said the placement of ash receptacles would take this problem into consideration. In some cases, the result might be that some designated smoking areas might be more than 20 feet away from buildings.

Sen. Frances Pritchett (Ten., A&S/Hum) called the question.
The Senate then voted by show of hands to adopt the resolution calling for a 20-foot smoking restriction. The tally was 31-13, with two abstentions.

Straw vote on a total smoking ban at Morningside. Sen. O’Halloran then accepted Sen. Cohen’s request for a straw vote on the idea of a total smoking ban on the Morningside campus. Some senators had left after the vote on the resolution. The vote by show of hands among those who remained was 27-10, with two abstentions.